SHAKER LIFE | FALL 2014 47
•Dylan Straffon
SPONSOR: Dar Caldwell, Director of
Entrepreneurship,PROJECT
Shaker LaunchHouse
When Dylan Straffon arrived at LaunchHouse for his Senior
Project, he certainly didn’t expect he’d be building a website for
the first hardware accelerator in the state of Ohio. But that’s
exactly what happened.
SENIOR “At first, I started with projects that were less important,”
explains Straffon, who’s now at Pennsylvania State University.
That included making graphics and other web-related activities,
a task he was well prepared for thanks to three years of electives
in graphics and digital multimedia at Shaker High.
Then Straffon and fellow Shaker senior Josh Jacobs
were asked to review the websites of 10 other hardware
accelerators around the country. A hardware accelerator
provides early-stage funding for technology startups
focused on hardware (robotics, for example). The
LaunchHouse Accelerator program incorporated early-stage
hardware start-ups this fall for the first time, thanks to a
grant from Ohio’s Third Frontier ONEFUND.
“We made a presentation and they said, ‘You do this for
us,’” says Straffon, who ended up staying on at LaunchHouse
after graduation to finish the project. “It was a lot of work to
get it up and functioning, so I wanted to come back and keep
working on it.”
•Dominique Owens
and Courtney Maxwell
SPONSOR: Michael Feigenbaum,
Owner, Lucy’s Sweet Surrender Bakery
For Dominique Owens and Courtney Maxwell, a Senior Project at
Lucy’s Sweet Surrender, the popular Hungarian-style bakery in the
heart of Shaker Heights, seemed like a great way to spend the last
month of high school. Both enjoyed baking and the two friends
looked forward to sampling all the goodies.
But Owens and Maxwell got a taste of much more than the
delectable house-made strudels and other pastries available at
Lucy’s Sweet Surrender. “There is so much more to running a
bakery than I thought,” says Owens, a student at Case Western
Reserve University.
For starters, it was a lot of hard physical work. “The first day
was intense. It was hot and we were making strudel all day,” Owens
recalls. Strudel is a particularly difficult pastry to make, as the
dough requires special handling, explains Lucy’s owner Michael
Feigenbaum (SHHS ’72).
“Then there was the day when I had to wash all the dishes,”
adds Maxwell. “I would think I was done and then they’d bring me
more dishes!”
“At least we didn’t make them get up at five o’clock in the
morning,” jokes Feigenbaum. “But this is a labor-intensive business
and they did everything from washing dishes and sweeping the
floor to assisting with the cakes and pastries.”
For Dominique and Courtney, that real-world experience
was more than worth it. “It was great to get out of the school
environment and see what it’s like to work as an employee,”
explains Owens. Notes Maxwell, now at Miami University of Ohio,
“I hadn’t had a job before, so I’d never had that experience.”
And not to worry, Owens and Maxwell got their fair share
of pastries too, including favorites like croissant with strawberry
and cheese filling, Hungarian-style doughnuts, and bacon biscuits.
“They are wonderful, especially when they are warm right out of
the oven,” says Owens. “Everyone should buy stuff there.”
At Shaker LaunchHouse, Dylan Straffon was able to build upon his
graphic design and multimedia coursework at Shaker by helping to
build a website for the first hardware accelerator in the state of Ohio.
Working with Shaker alum Michael
Feigenbaum at Lucy’s Sweet
Surrender bakery, Dominique Owens
and Courtney Maxwell not only
learned the secret to making the
perfect strudel, but to running a
successful small business. “At least
we didn’t make them get up at 5 am,”
joked Feigenbaum.